A Different Line of Work
by The Illustrious Crackpot
Summary: Day in and day out, constantly abused for someone else's credit.  Is there any payoff? Why does he keep doing it?


**A Different Line of Work**

(The Illustrious Crackpot)

"All done, sir," the banana slug announced, depositing a massive stack of papers on the Scoutmaster's desk. He pulled out a clipboard, ticking off various items with a ballpoint pen stored under his cap. "That's cabin maintenance completed, flag raised to half-mast for Bastille Day, Mess Hall cleanup supervised, roll call taken, scout medical records re-copied and re-alphabetized, camp enrollment fees collected and filed, and your auxiliary uniform returned from the cleaners." Putting the clipboard behind his back, Slinkman raised himself onto his tiptoes. "Is there anything else, sir?"

Scoutmaster Lumpus was squinting at a magazine entitled _Good Moosekeeping_, seeming rather intent on whatever article he was skimming. "Sure, sure, that's good, Slinkman," he commended, waving his hand dismissively. His glasses slid down his face, but he made no effort to push them back up. Instead, Slinkman reached over and gently repositioned them himself. "Did you...ehhhh...re-toilet paper the latrines?"

"Completed not an hour ago, sir."

"Whatever." The bull moose cocked his head to the side to better squint at a graph charting the average moose's chances of inheriting large fortunes, and was clearly not going to pay any more attention to his assistant. "You may go now, Slinkman."

"Yes, sir." Slinkman nodded, and flashed a small smile. It was a little bit strained—but Lumpus wouldn't notice. He hadn't even looked at Slinkman once since his early-morning wakeup call.

The slug was nearly out the door when a small grunt made him turn around again. "Oh, and Slinkman..." Lumpus began again, raising his head for the first time in the entire conversation—but it was only to stare at the ceiling as he tried to remember something. "The Grand Legume Council is preparing a spaghetti dinner for...for...ehh, when was—"

"Thursday at eight, sir," Slinkman interrupted, the Scoutmaster's appointments for the next two weeks already having been memorized.

"Yeeees, yesh, Thursday at eight," muttered Lumpus, returning to his magazine. "I need a speech, Slinkman."

"...Right on it, sir."

It was only after he'd left the Scoutmaster's office and the door was safely closed that Slinkman was able to let out a small sigh, allowing the wall to prop him up in lieu of his aching feet. Writing the speeches. Delivering the announcements to the Scouts. Making sure that the camp wasn't going to fall apart anytime soon.

Doing everything the Scoutmaster should have done.

Sometimes Slinkman felt like just walking into Lumpus's office and telling him to do his own work for once. Sometimes he wanted to tell the moose that he was quitting, or transferring to another Bean Scout camp, or even just moving to Alaska. Sometimes he'd gotten as far as marching up to Lumpus's desk to tell him any of these things...but he'd always given out at the last minute, instead reverting to that long-uttered phrase.

"_Is there anything else, sir?"_

There was _always_ something else. There was always a light that needed fixing, or something that needed desperately to be found, or some personal comfort the Scoutmaster required that no, of _course_ Slinkman couldn't share.

"_Is there anything else, sir?"_

Slinkman slid slowly into a sitting position and extended his legs with another sigh, his eye stalks drooping. He was rarely recognized for his efforts either, and if he _was_ it was normally a prelude to another request. Instead, the big brass in the Bean Scout organization applauded _Lumpus's_ efforts, _Lumpus's_ management of the camp, _Lumpus's_ hard work. And the moose had managed to bluff his way past them enough times that if Slinkman were to suddenly come forward and claim the credit, nobody would believe him.

...Sometimes Slinkman wished that _he_ was Scoutmaster.

It was his favorite dream. How he longed to take that wide-brimmed hat and balance it on his own head, to stand up and take charge, to be the one _giving_ the orders, the one the scouts confided in, the one who was acknowledged for his own deeds—

But he knew, even in the middle of these dreams, that it couldn't _really_ happen. He lacked the one thing a Scoutmaster needed most: a backbone. That was what Lumpus had, a stubborn streak, and that was why _Lumpus_ was sitting behind that desk with the wide-brimmed hat and _Slinkman_ was the one who was supposed to be writing the speech.

It didn't always seem worth it, even if his job allowed him to stay in the camp he'd adored in his younger years and watch over the Bean Scouts he'd come to love. Or even to keep in touch with Lumpus, the best friend of many years past.

Yes, they _had_ been best friends. Thrown together as outcasts, really—Slinkman had always been shunned by others because of his quiet nature and his willingness to work hard regardless of rewards, and Lumpus had been left out as the oldest Bean Scout in the camp, considerably older than most of the other scouts and even Slinkman himself. They'd been forced to bond, having become cabinmates, and before too long they'd become nigh-inseparable. Those days, those two weeks of early summer close on twenty years ago Slinkman had always thought upon as the best memories of his childhood, better even than his first Slugfest or the first time he'd ever fallen in love.

Then the craft fair had come.

Back in "the olden days", Prickly Pines had held an annual craft fair, which the Scoutmaster required all the Kidney Beans to participate in with the hopes that the unambitious scouts would at _least_ earn their Crafts badges. Lumpus, angry with his (flawed, to say the least) ballerina toothpick sculpture, had smashed it on the eve of the fair, only realizing too late that he now had nothing to display. Taking pity on the older moose, who'd practically thrown himself into Leaky Lake in terror of the consequences, Slinkman had stayed up all night to create a second sculpture for Lumpus to pretend was his own. What were friends for, after all?

Not only did Lumpus get his Crafts badge, his toothpick Eiffel Tower had won first prize in its category at the fair. People "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over the fine workmanship, the intricate details, and the keen eye of the creator. To Lumpus, of course. Not to Slinkman, who deserved it.

He supposed that after the one success, Lumpus simply couldn't stop. Slowly, but _ever_ so surely, Slinkman had begun to find himself doing _other_ things for Lumpus. A carried tray here. An organized cabin there. Slinkman didn't complain—he was used to working diligently, and if it helped his friend, he would be the last to refuse the request. But it did get monotonous, if such a light word could be used in that situation. He'd felt like he was merely an extension of Lumpus's shadow, only substantial so that he could do heavy lifting.

That was part of the reason he'd become the daredevil stuntman Superslug, to be his own person for once and actually shunt some of the spotlight towards _himself_. Lumpus hadn't liked that at all; he'd cough and pretend not to notice the revelry surrounding his friend, then ask Slinkman to do some menial task for him. As gladly as Slinkman would have done whatever it was, his newfound admirers would automatically form a barrier around him, telling Lumpus to get his _own_ glass of water or whatever item Lumpus had insisted he needed.

It was probably the loss of attention combined with the lack of a gofer that had driven Lumpus to sabotage Superslug's final performance at Dead Bean Drop.

Slinkman hadn't known this at the time, of course; he'd been moving too quickly to see Lumpus stick his leg in the shaft. All he remembered was the endless eternity of falling, then the sudden hard hotness that had most likely been his impact on the ground.

The slug shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, pulling his legs closer to his chest. It was a good thing he'd been wearing a helmet, along with his layer of ridiculously poofy hair, without either of which he might have split his skull open. As it was, he'd fallen unconscious immediately after his landing and had woken up days later in a hospital.

Lumpus hadn't visited him once in the two weeks he'd had to spend recuperating, without even a note explaining why he wasn't there or even just a get-well card. When Slinkman had finally been allowed to return to camp, he'd been stunned to find that the moose wasn't there either. One of the other campers had informed him that, shortly after Slinkman's departure, Lumpus had revealed the (surprising) fact that he'd received all his merit badges, which had resulted in his immediate transfer to Tomato Scout Camp...even though there were rumors flying that the moose had just ordered the badges from a cheap costume shop.

So it passed that Slinkman hadn't seen or heard from his best friend until five years previous when he'd answered an ad for a job as Assistant Scoutmaster—or, as he'd quickly learned, Assistant _to_ the Scoutmaster. And even though he hadn't seen Lumpus in ten years, the bull moose had acted like nothing had ever been wrong.

Slinkman supposed that Lumpus had ordered the badges some time before the "accident" at Dead Bean Drop, keeping them hidden until "Superslug" was gone so that Lumpus could recapture the spotlight in his absence. It would've been the perfect setup—Camp Kidney's scouts were notorious for never earning merit badges, so anyone who earned _all_ of them would be practically worshiped—except that Lumpus had forgotten the fact about moving up to Tomato Scout. And from there it had been a long, grueling hop, skip and jump up to earning his inherited position of Scoutmaster...all without the best friend he'd sent off a cliff. But when said best friend miraculously reappeared, the moose was only too eager to take advantage of him on an even higher scale than the years past.

Why did he put up with it?

Not because Lumpus was his superior—theoretically, it was easy enough for him to quit. Not even because Lumpus had been his best friend—the level of abuse Slinkman was going through would have broken up almost _any_ friendship.

_Why?_

Because Lumpus needed him. Without recognition from somebody, Algonquin was nothing more than an empty husk, and, more often than not, Slinkman was the only one willing to look him in the eye and see him. And as part of a reasonably long line of successful Scoutmasters, Lumpus had to try his best to live up to that standard, even though he was completely inept at almost everything he tried his hand at. Slinkman couldn't even begin to imagine the sorts of rigors the moose had had to go through on his way to the Scoutmaster's post, with so many people expecting so much of him, and he forced to give his two hundred percent every moment of the day just to attain mediocrity...with not a single soul to help him, to confide in, even just to hang out with. Being suddenly reunited with his only friend after ten years of such backbreaking loneliness, Lumpus probably hadn't been capable of dealing with the situation, and so, like he'd treated so many other problems over his life, he'd ignored it.

Of course, Lumpus knew _exactly_ what he was doing when ordering Slinkman to do his job for him. Of course he felt it was only natural that he constantly invade the slug's privacy by reading all his correspondence and even his own diary. Of course he quite clearly felt little or no remorse about his actions at Dead Bean Drop years ago, when he'd nearly killed his best friend—that "friend" had returned to him, so Lumpus had probably decided that the ends justified all of the means. Of course there were only a few rare times nowadays that Lumpus actually seemed to care about Slinkman as a person.

But Slinkman just couldn't turn his back on someone who needed him enough to go to any lengths to keep him around. If he had to run an entire camp by himself with little to no vacations and absolutely _no_ accompanying praise, well, he supposed it was all part of the deal.

It was a hard job, but somebody had to do it.

The slug continued to sit against the wall for a few moments longer, then exhaled and stood up, brushing off his knees. Narrowing his eyes and mouthing silent words as he did so, Slinkman began to walk slowly towards his room, easing progressively into a small, concentrated mumble.

"...and so, fellow Legumes, I bring to the table our next important issue..."

_Fin_


End file.
